Run	Date	Hare(s)	Description	MapRef	1:50000	1:25000	1:10000	More
935	2019-11-24 11:00	Two Ferrets Fighting and Hairbrush	Forestside and Stansted Village Hall	SU756121

As mornings go, this one was nothing of anything, the sun could have risen in the West hidden behind a uniform grey screen, no rain, no wind, not warm, not cold, no birdsong, not even a caw from a crow.

The trees, on the other hand, were a feast for the eyes, festooned in all the shades of yellow in the paint by numbers palette.

The nice lady that lives just up the road from the hall had cordoned off the small car park just for us, apparently she has some sort of arrangement with Treefeller, know what I mean?, nudge nudge, wink wink.

Two Ferrets Fighting should consider buying shares in Premier Foods, she has laid so many trails of late and before we could sample it there was a rush of Hashers intent on thrusting a wad of cash into the welcoming hands of Snake Charmer who is organising the grub at the next run.

It would have been surprising if the Hares had not told us that the trail was dry and dusty, so they did, before ushering us North on the road towards Christchurch where the punters were in the midst of their Eucharist.

Kinky's horn was soon calling us East into the trees, incidentally, he admits that he only knows how to blow three notes on the horn, the two higher are good and strong, while the lower tends to make his upper lip tingle due to the tremolo.

The Hares were forced to show us the trail South into Batty's Park because all the labour that they had put into laying it had been neutralised by a saboteur who will have their own special place in Hell.

Somewhere in here, unobserved, Soapbox communed intimately with nature, managing to camouflage most of himself with mud and bits of twig, not one of his best days.

When we reached the big N way junction at Rosamond's Hill we were confounded by a sneaky bit of bypass trail. Most of us got well into Wythy Piece to find a long falsie before being called back to continue South down Forest Hanger on the edge of the trees where the path has deep muddy core, the choice is either splosh down the middle or spread legs wide for a dry foot Penguin waddle.

A couple of Checks along here had been laid in an attempt to lure us into the conservation area of Firtree Piece this worked well, and avoided a dreaded Fish Hook. Just in case, the likes of Snake Charmer, Kinky, Popeye, Pancsi, Jenny, etc. were reeled in by a Regroup at the Eastern end of the path through Hare Warren.

Here a kangaroo court condemned Kinky for interrogating some Walkers and Snake Charmer prodded a bunch of iridescent feathers with her foot wondering who? or what? had been a pheasant plucker, she of course is not a pheasant plucker, she's a ..etc.

Through the warren we crossed the road into Stansted Forest and its maze of paths where recent felling, some of it as part of Ash Dieback prevention, has subtly altered the landscape.

Another alteration that came to light was in the area of Dr Blood's left knee, which now sported a deep gash and flapping flesh, "tis a mere trifle" he said through gritted teeth.

After a couple of falsies to the North we found the inevitable good trail in that direction and pounded over decaying sweet chestnut pods to find the On-In after an almost perfect one hour and nine minutes of autumnal hashing.

At the circle we thanked the Hares for a great Hash, Kinky made a spirited defence against the charge of walker talk so the Hash-It was given to Jenny because she was standing too close to our JM when he was floundering about looking for a recipient.

We decamped to The Cricketers where we sat in the warmth of a blazing fire and put the world to rights.

On – On ! Bambi